Plant hire is a fickle business. There’s almost always a ton of money on the line when you’re making a decision, and it can be tough to make the right call without adequate information.

We know all this, and so do you. That’s why we went straight to people in the industry when we needed to design our new app. We sat down with project managers, spoke to plant hire suppliers, and attacked the issue from every angle.

The feedback came down to three main issues. The three most important aspects, according to users, were:

Speed of results.

Ease of use.

Accuracy of results.

The new iSeekplant app is significantly faster than using the desktop website. It’s also much faster than the first iteration of our app, which was released in 2014. A lot of time and effort went into optimising the app design for speed, and we think we’ve really pulled it off. Now it’s just a matter of the original website catching up.

As for ease of use, this is something we really took to heart. Our entire business is premised on the fact that we are the easiest way to source plant for a project. If someone can’t pick up the iSeekplant app and instantly understand how to use it, we’ve failed. We placed a strong emphasis on intuitive use, and user testing so far indicates we’ve hit the nail on the head. The simple interface, combined with the easy search options, make the app incredibly easy to understand straight away.

Our search algorithm is constantly improving. Our ultimate goal is to understand exactly what every user wants before they even start typing – a lofty goal, but better to aim high than low. We’ve been refining the search algorithm throughout 2016, and combined with some major changes, we’ve got things working quite well.

Moving forward, our search algorithm will expand to include more efficient “free search”, which means a user can type in any local term for a piece of machinery, including slang terms, and get an accurate result. We’re also improving our algorithm’s understanding of the machinery requirements for different regions and different projects, and this will all ultimately result in better search results for our users.

The iSeekplant family is growing very rapidly, with hundreds of new suppliers coming on every month. The number of searches performed on our site is growing faster, which means we must constantly focus on improving the service we deliver.

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is getting the job done. ISeekplant is here to improve the speed and efficiency with which people hire plant – this means more work for our members, and more savings for our users.

Please download the iSeekplant app and give it a whirl. Push it to its limits, and don’t hesitate to send us any feedback.

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